Can Worcester run a profitable baseball team?

Monday

Nov 18, 2013 at 6:00 AM

By Peter S. Cohan, WALL & MAIN

The Worcester Tornadoes folded. Now that Worcester is getting another at bat — the new Worcester franchise in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League that will begin play at The College of the Holy Cross next June — will it follow the advice of Paul Cantiani?

Mr. Cantiani, who has operated Cantiani Insurance Agency in Worcester and Douglas for over 40 years, was involved with the Tornadoes starting in 2005.

As he said in a November 4 interview, "I was not part owner of the Tornadoes for political reasons. If I had owned the team, people would think I had an agenda. Worcester has been good to me. I have been a coach for 30 years. I wanted to do something for the people. I was helping to arrange for 48 restaurants to feed the players every night. They didn't know how to run a business. But they didn't listen to me, so I left in 2009."

In August 2012, Worcester lost the Tornadoes. That was when the Can-Am League announced that it had terminated the membership of the Worcester Tornadoes baseball club — what the Boston Globe wrote was "the final nail in the coffin of an organization that suffered a tumultuous financial downfall over the past few months."

League commissioner Miles Wolff said back then, "We have taken this action because the league wants strong, financially viable ownership in the Worcester market. We will begin immediately looking for ownership for a team in Worcester that will be a positive influence in the community for many years to come."

That did not happen. But the Futures League — that bills itself "equal parts family-friendly, affordable entertainment and high-caliber baseball" will be coming to Worcester and start play in the summer of 2014. The Futures League hosts "wood-bat with 10 collegiate summer baseball teams. Its mission is to prepare young men for the rigors of playing professional baseball. League rules require that at least 15 of the 30 players on each roster have a local connection."

Mr. Cantiani has some advice for those who hope to make money with a baseball team in Worcester: Keep ticket prices low, provide free parking, and make a decent profit on food and beverages. He believes that since the Tornadoes did not do that, it failed.

"We could have made $50,000 in revenue at a game and $25,000 in gross profit by selling hot dogs and sandwiches. What they did was to hire outside food services that gave them profits of only 5 or 10 percent. Their profit went down the tubes. $18 was too high for tickets. Holy Cross had 400 parking places but 250 were taken by the summer camp. So people had to pay $3 to park or they parked on McKeon Road — which was far away — and walked."

Mr, Cantiani made a proposal to the Worcester City Council that was rejected.

"I wanted a professional team that would be located at Lake Park. I arranged for free parking with Four Seasons on Lake Ave for 2,000 to 3,000 people. I would make ticket prices under $10 and sell two hot dogs and a drink for $5. You can buy a bottle of water for 29 cents at BJ's. Hot dogs cost less than a dollar. That's $2.50 in profit for the hot dogs and drink and $7 to $8 per person in profit. The Tornadoes charged $4 for a bottle of water! I run a pretty big insurance agency. I know how to make and lose money. The City Council are not doers."

Mr. Cantiani cited the Brockton Rox as a model for how to run a team. The Rox, once part of the Can-Am League, are now part of the same Futures League as the new Worcester team.

But according to the EnterpriseNews, the website for the Brockton Enterprise newspaper, the Rox may not be profitable. The newspaper wrote that the Rox sold "6,209 tickets through 23 home games, averaging just under 1,600 per game this season — down from 38,994 in the same number of games last year — their first season in the amateur league."

Michael Canina, president of baseball operations for the Rox, explained the decline.

"On paper, it looks like we're down, but we had two rainouts for games where we sold just shy of 3,000 tickets. Internally we're counting an average of close to 1,800," he told the EnterpriseNews.

But Mr. Canina was unclear about the Rox's revenue. He said that without at least 600 people at each game, the team loses money. And while 900 people attended each game in 2012, he declined to provide figures for the 2013 season. The EnterpriseNews concluded that, "Even if the Rox have secure a spot in the playoffs — meaning there could be up to three more home games this season — it's unclear if baseball can be profitable in Brockton."

The same can be said for baseball in Worcester.

Peter Cohan of Marlboro heads a management consulting and venture capital firm, and teaches business strategy and entrepreneurship at Babson College. His email address is peter@petercohan.com.